By Bisi Olawunmi
One year, two months in office, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ‘Emilokan’ Presidency faces its toughest challenge with the planned nationwide youth hunger protest scheduled to begin Thursday, August 1, 2024.
It is planned to last 10 days, through August 10, 2024. The hashtags for the protests include – #Endhunger, #Endbadgovernance, #DaysofRage and #Revolutionnow.
The youth-led action against the hardship ravaging the country is giving the presidency the jitters, considering the morbid fear of assumptive possibility that youthful exuberance can go into overdrive, resulting in precipitate violence.
There is also the potent possibility that overzealous police officers and other security agents, may attack peaceful protesters to provoke violent resistance with a view to achieving a predetermined end. The orchestrated scenario, by various security agencies, of the inevitability of the protests turning violent is suspect.
If intelligence indicates to the security agencies possible breach of peace during the protests, is it not their responsibility to pre-empt it and as well develop contingency plans against its eventuality?Fearmongering is least expected from security agencies.
One wonders why security agencies should be preoccupied with truncating the right of the people to protest, a right even acknowledged by the Presidency. If the protests hold and the security agencies fail to contain any possible violence, then their leaderships should be held accountable.
There is a lesson to learn from the recent resignation of the head of the U.S. Secret Service for its failure to prevent the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the presidential candidate of the Republican party.The security agencies have had enough notice of the protests.
Perhaps attempting to scare the protesters is part of the multiple strategies being adopted by a scared Presidency to ward off this public demonstration of anger over hunger in the land. The EMILOKAN ENSEMBLE has been striving, mightily, to deploy all the tools of propaganda to abort the protests.
There is the political dimension that adopted a demonisation of the opposition, particularly the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, as sponsors of the protests to destabilise the government. This is a cheap blackmail and a product of infantile reasoning.
First, it is Tinubu, who destabilised his own government with his mouth on May 29, 2023, day one of his assumption of office with his ill-thought out, cavalier declaration: “subsidy is gone“. He has been flailing, unsuccessfully, for damage control from the consequent fallout of that flippancy, till today.
Secondly, conflict is an integral component of democracy and the duty of the opposition is to exploit the failure of the party in government with a view of selling itself to the people as a better alternative for their vote in the next election and to form the government. It is, therefore, legitimate, whether or not LP and Peter Obi are sponsors of the protests.
Did they put those three potent words in Tinubu’s mouth? Is the opposition responsible for his policy decisions, actions and somersaults which have only aggravated the damage of May 29, 2023 that heralded hardship in the land?
What has emerged before the public is an over hyped Tinubu Presidency that is bereft of ideas on how to get out of the morass it has sunk itself. In recent days, the president has been engaging groups and all manner of people at the Presidential Villa for advice and for them to make a plea to their constituencies not to embark on the protests.
The group of traditional rulers at the Villa, in various esoteric regalia, some looking like clowns or masquerades, provided a hilarious relief! Not that politicians have regard for them, though, as some governors wont blink an eye to suspend or depose a traditional ruler.
There is also the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, the tempestuous former governor of Rivers state who, in the guttural voice of Lagos hoodlums, was belching hell fire banning protesters in his Abuja fiefdom.
Of course, it was an over-reach as he has no authority to make or enforce such redundant declaration. But then, Wike has to play lickspittle to ingratiate himself with President Tinubu for federal might protection so as not to be buried, politically, in Rivers state by a young Governor Sim Fubara.
Among the disparate groups seeking the president’s attention to be counted as part of Stop The Protest Brigade is the National Ethnic Nationalities Youth Leaders Council Worldwide ( NENYLCW ).
Two of its leaders, Aare Oladotun Hassan, President and Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, General Secretary, were featured on Arise TV’s The Morning Show programme on Monday, May 29, 2024. It was obvious their TV appearance was a strategy of angling for the president’s attention so as to be invited to the Presidential Villa and for possible largesse from such visit.
However, they could not establish the number of ethnic youth groups in the organisation they claim to represent! It is a season of playing smart, joining the bandwagon. But Arise TV’s anchor, Dr. Reuben Abati, could not resist a pun at the duo: “With your bear(d), you say you are youth, but the United Nations has an age definition of youth.
Anyway, you are as young as you think you are,” the two guests laughed it off, sheepishly! Rallying these disparate groups to dissuade the protesters is a manifestation of the desperation of the Presidency to abort the protests. It is a lot of comedown for the Emperor of Lagos to be literally on his knees, begging and praying, that this cup might pass him by.
The City Boy swagger is gone, at least, for now. He had to eat the humble pie. Even if the protests get suspended, turn out a yawn and fizzle out, the point has been made, and made emphatically, about the reality of hunger ravaging the land.
In addition to hunger, there is also unanimity about the insecurity devastating the country. It is no excuse that Tinubu inherited insecurity.
His job is to alleviate it, not for it to worsen. Anyway, wasn’t his party, the All Progressives Party ( APC ) and President Muhammdu Buhari, that he foisted on the nation, who allowed insecurity to escalate nationwide?
All the groups trotted out by the Presidency, including the traditional rulers, were only pleading for patience from the people for more time to allow the president to get his act together, to tackle the twin evils bedevilling the nation. Various groups and prominent individuals have made similar pleas before.
For instance, former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and two-time governor of Ogun State, Aremo Segun Osoba, had much earlier pleaded with the nation to give the Tinubu Presidency up to one year to tackle the punishing high cost of living and insecurity which have turned Nigeria into a killing field. We have since passed the one year mark, yet no respite.
For the Tinubu Presidency, it is like the Yoruba saying: Kaka ko san lara iya aje, obirin lo nbi, eiye npelu eiye (There is no appropriate English translation, but it can be improvised as: rather than things getting better, they are getting worse).
That is the sad reality of Nigeria under Tinubu Presidency. It is a numbing paradox that Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought a triumphant political war to clinch the presidency only to turn out, so far, as an unmitigated disaster in managing victory.
(Dr. Bisi Olawunmi, a Senior Lecturer at Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State is a former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and Fellow, Nigerian Guild of Editors. Phone (SMS ONLY) 08033647571 Email: olawunmibisi@yahoo.com)
